Monday, November 19, 2007

Bad Science at Surface Temperature Recording Stations

Dire "global warming" predictions are based on bad science from the very start, says a veteran meteorologist who found surface temperatures recorded throughout the U.S. are done so with almost no regard to scientific standards.

As a result of his shocking initial findings that temperature monitoring stations were constructed and placed without regard to achieving accurate recordings of natural temperatures, Anthony Watts set out to investigate the facilities used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots.

The photo included in the article, of Lovelock, Nevada's temperature sensor, is not one of the official climate monitoring stations. The one included above (Tahoe City, California) is an official station. It's close to parking (not shown in the photo), a tennis court only 25 feet away, not the required 100 feet, and of course a trash-burning barrel only 5 feet away.

The vast majority of the stations surveyed to date [(one third of the 1,221 stations)] fail to meet the prescribed standards. Using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 reflecting proper maintenance and standards and 5 representing facilities that are severely compromised, Watts says 70 percent of those stations surveyed received a 4 or 5 rating, while only 4 percent received a grade of 1.

All of the most egregious violations he has observed in the study would result in artificially higher temperatures being recorded.

I suppose it's possible that every other country in the world is doing a better job of carefully measuring surface temperatures in a scientifically sound manner than we are. I suppose...

But pictures like this one and the others at Watts's website tend to give a new meaning to the term, "man-made global warming." How much of global warming is real, and how much of it is man-made inaccuracy? Judging by the condition of our official surface temperature monitorning stations, we have no idea. And we won't be able to know until they get the problems corrected. And the U.S. Historical Climatological Network has not been addressing the problems.